Top 175 Quotes & Sayings by Mary J. Blige - Page 3

So as long as I'm a human being and I'm not perfect, I'm able to say I'm having some growing pains. Because in order to sustain where you are once you made such a breakthrough that everyone is looking at you, now everyone is like, 'Ooh, is she gonna make a mistake?' Yes, I'm going to make a mistake. Yes, I'm still gonna do things.

So many people are like, 'I'm perfect.' I'm so imperfect; that's why I'm able to let everything out and let people see everything. 'Cause I'm just a mess like every other person that's a mess out there.

Growing up, I was the preferred hairstylist for all of my friends.

I think women should band together to get us more respect in all the businesses that we're in because, you know, if we turn 40, we're nothing and nobody. We all should band together and just say we're not gonna go down like that.

I believe that anything man himself can do for me, God can do for me in a greater way. I decided to pray and to seek God on my own. I just stayed in The Word. And it worked.

I still get nervous about singing. I drink tea with honey and lemon before every concert. And I need to have scented candles in all of my hotel rooms.

I can have as many bad days as anyone. But I choose to say, 'I'm just fine.'

I like to do interior design, I love to quilt, I love to see different colors together, and I love to match things up.

As a kid, I was in love with Michael Jackson, and I just knew I was going to marry him someday.

God loves me and sent his son to die for me so I have to live to please him because he saved me when everyone abandoned me.

Don't go a full day or night without washing your face. You have to get all the dirt and makeup out of your pores.

My responsibility to God is to live. That's the gift he gave me. What I do with it is up to me.

From being a little girl in the projects, going through all of the mess that I was going through, to ending up at the Inauguration for the first African-American president, I'm speechless right now because I never thought I'd - I never ever - I couldn't even see that far. Even when I ended up in the music business I couldn't see that.

I like what I see when I'm looking at me when I'm walking past the mirror.

Love is wonderful, amazing, and the best thing that can happen to us.

You have to create different things, either through lighting or changing the format of the songs and how you're going to sing them, and even sometimes props.

When I`m going to do a Christmas album I had to put my mind in Christmas mode. I had to go back to being a child and remembering all of that. When I go to do a project, I'm serious about it, so I wrap my world around it, and it becomes Christmastime for me and I'm singing songs like it's Christmas day.

The music business is really, really small. The real music is becoming almost extinct, if you don't stay true to who you are.

I don't want no drama in my life, even though we have a little bit, but no more letting people control you. That's drama, because then you become something that you're not.

For the first time in my life, I'm proud of myself

If you're looking for inner peace from the outside world, you're not going to get that. The inner peace starts with looking at you from the inside. Understanding that everything that comes to you is what you are. Everything from friends to boyfriends to the job you get - it's all a direct reflection of what you are on the inside.

I think everyone should understand history of segregation the same way we had to go to school and read about George Washington. I believe this generation should know their history and they should know that the struggle's not over yet. For instance, you can't get the cover of a magazine if your skin is too dark.

I’ve done well, I’ve been disappointed, and I think it all goes back to you. Of course the labels are going to be the labels. It’s the music business. You are a business. That’s what they do. So you’ve got to protect yourself.

Negative words are powerful boomerangs so be careful what you say about people and yourself.

...I would be a liar and my fans would hate me if I said to them, 'Oh, we're perfect and everything is great.' We have situations just like everyone else. We're not out in public trying to kill each other, but it's real. We love each other.

It's sad that a lot of identities are lost and a lot of careers are lost because there's sort of a clone thing going on.

I'm searching for a real love.

The fact is that everyone at the labels wants to do what everyone else is doing. You have to look like her; you have to be like her; you have to sing like her, and no one can express themselves. I look at Rihanna and I am so proud of her. She speaks loudly! You have to stand up and clap. She expresses herself through fashion. She actually can sing. And her songs mean something, even to me, you know?

In the studio you can really concentrate on performing the song where as on stage you also have to worry about connecting with so many people, they're definitely different.

I decided to start my own label because so many people with talent come to me wanting to know how they can get in the music business.

As far as men go, they never gave me a chance to be me; they were always scared that somebody was going to take me.

We are all just a work in progress.

The only person that I'm really feeling - because she has an identity of her own, even though she has listened to Mary J. Blige - is Jill Scott.

It's up to us to choose whether we win or lose...and I choose to win.

You have to have a plan. Everything has to be planned. For me, I start with the title of my album, before I even start with the songs. I write down different things that I want album to say, and then the songs come from the different words.

It's that first step-getting out the door-that's the toughest. If you can do that, you've already won.

We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.

I cannot save the world, that's not what I'm trying to do. I guess I'm just trying to walk the walk and be an example to those that want it. Not everybody does, but if Mary J Blige can come out of that same hole you were in, then you can do it too - that's my goal: to do that without saying it, but actually live it.

When you're going to do whatever you're going to do, you have to get your, put your mind into it.

Cause I'm no better than you, you, or you. And I can't get on no throne and preach, 'cause I'm not God.

No one compares to you. Just remember that. There's no one out there - there's only one of you, and that's it. And whatever you believe about you that's great, no one else has it. And I can't look like you, there's no way I can slip into your body and be you, and you can't slip into my body and be me. This is all we're gonna get.

I've learned so much from all my mistakes. I just wish I had gotten my education.

That's the message I want to give to every up-and-coming artist: Do everything that is going to help you later. If you clone somebody else, that's all they're gonna keep wanting from you.

I blame my mother for nothing, but forgive her for everything.

My career doesn't get harder because when you have something to share, you have something to share. And when it's a trial or a situation that you triumph out of, you have to - because this is the relationship I started with my fans on the My Life album in 1994. You have to share in order for people to see how you came through it, or how you're dealing with having thoughts of doubting yourself. What songs are gonna help you? What lyrics are gonna pull you out of your slump?

In your life there's peaks and valleys and sometimes we regress, and we don't even know we regress. You just have to learn how to accept all of your mistakes and learn to love yourself again.

People in my neighborhood inspired me to sing. Believe in your ability no matter what, but be realistic with yourself and your ability.

If you're looking for inner peace from the outside world, you're not going to get that. The inner peace starts with looking at you from the inside.

The important thing is to realize that no matter what people's opinions may be, they're only just that - people's opinions. You have to believe in your heart what you know to be true about yourself. And let that be that.

Then my life crashed and burned down: trials, men, drama, no self-love, no identity. A little identity, but not a lot of love for myself, my life.

When I was five years old I was molested and just, you know. I remember feeling, literally right before it happened, I just could not believe that this person was going to do this to me. That thing followed me all my life. The shame of thinking my molestation was my fault - it led me to believe I wasn't worth anything.

I'm hoping that my entrepreneurial side will have me at a place where I don't have to do anything. That's what I'm striving for.

Working in the studio is a more personal experience whereas on stage in front of a billion people, its more exciting performing live.

The streets respect me because I kept it real with me. You gotta be real with yourself, and the streets recognize game.

I mean, I know my heart is not clean, and your heart is not clean, and none of our urban hearts are clean. But you can be washed again.